Americas and Oceania Collections blog

Exploring the Library’s collections from the Americas and Oceania

06 June 2011

Ring Any Bells? Paul Revere and printmaking

Bostonmassacre101kb 
Paul Revere is, it seems, an echo of a memory of something that happened.  But as well as taking that pesky (from the British point of view) ride on the night of 18-19 April 1775, when he rode to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock in Lexington that the British were marching towards them from Boston, sparking a chain of events that would lead the naming of a bunch of restaurants, the great American patriot was also a silversmith and copperplate engraver.  He put these skills to good use in the service of the Revolution, engraving and printing currency for the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and in a series of striking prints.  Perhaps his most famous image can be seen above, a dramatic reconstruction of the Boston Massacre: read all about it on our online feature.

There are a number of other Revere prints in the collections.  They can be located by a search of [Paul Revere] in the English Short Title Catalogue, and then by limiting the results to the British Library.  There are a number of bibliographies, studies and biographies.  I can do no better than refer the interested reader in the listing produced by the American Antiquarian Society.

And there's more about the Old North Church and its lanterns here.

[MJS]

Comments

The comments to this entry are closed.

.